Beach Sands
by Syaoran-Lover
Summary: ONESHOT! Parallel to "Couple Dates". Back in Hong Kong, Syaoran works up his studies and Meirin works up her feelings. The answer to the situation may lay in Beach Sands.


A.N.: This is just something to go along with my CCS _fourshot_ **Couple Dates**. It stands separate for a reason unrelated to the content presented below.

The cousins are back in Hong Kong; Syaoran is now studying to become the Li family leader one day… and whatever else it is he chooses to do by them.

EDIT: As an anonymous reviewer pointed out, I did exaggerate my "I-don't-like-Sakura" speech, so I removed it. You were right… though mostly because this is not a chat place, but a shrine to written pieces. Whoever you were, thank you, honestly.

I would like to point out, however, that reviews weren't meant to offend the author, but to give helpful criticism (for good or bad) on what was written. In other words, you had no right to offend me, no matter how much you did not like what was here before.

Title: **BEACH SANDS**

_By Syaoran-Lover_

Syaoran is studying in his room… and it's his favorite subject: math. Needless to say, no one interrupts the young heir of the Li family. Of course, they wouldn't really interrupt him for anything unless it was urgent, so it made no difference.

Problem: he'd been locked up in his room for almost five hours, which was way too much, even for him. He must be really concentrated… or really tired. For some reason, my cousin has this trait of pushing himself to his limits, like when chasing magic cards throughout the night though having to wake up early to go to school and not sleep during classes, and still study… that can't be too easy. He's human too… he has his toll.

Unfortunately, he doesn't know about it and ever since I can remember he's been this way, forcing himself beyond a normal person's capabilities. He takes his responsibilities too seriously… at least that's what I think.

Wei has been training him since Syaoran was able to stand on his own feet, teaching and taking care of him in all ways possible. I wonder what the man would say if I ask him what he thinks of my cousin.

I choose to remain silent, however, as I finish my task. I'm happy to see that this time, I didn't burn the cookies. Wei helps me put them on a tray without burning myself in the process. I thank him; he's always been very kind to me.

A few minutes later, I knock on the door, but no one answers. Opening it and stepping in, I observe the inside of the room, thinking he would be sitting on his wooden desk, trying to solve some sort of problem. Instead, there are only closed books on top of it, some papers and a pen.

I take a few steps further inside and look to the other side… to the part of the room hidden by the open door where his bed is. By its foot, there are some books open on random pages, the wind entering through the veranda doors shuffling them occasionally. On top of the bed, I spot his body lying sideways.

Sleeping.

Most probably he fell asleep reading the only open book beside him. I leave the tray on his desk and kneel beside the bed. For a moment, all I do is stare at him… at the handsome face that has captured me since we were six years old. Now, thirteen years later, it still has the same effect.

I can't resist the urge to touch him, my hand moves forward, eager to caress his cheek…

And I'm suddenly pinned on the ground only half a second after I touch it, my arm behind me in his vicious grip. I gasp.

His eyes widen. "Meirin! You should know better than to do that! You know what I was trained to do!" My cousin reproaches me as he lets go, though his weight on me still pins my body down.

"Syaoran! Get off!"

"Oh, yeah, sorry… what are doing here anyway?" He asks me.

I point towards his desk, where he notices the tray of cookies I brought. "I thought you had been studying up to now, so you'd probably be tired. I thought…"

"I _was_ studying up to now. Actually, I had just finished and decided to relax by reading a light book, but then I fell asleep. That was about twenty minutes ago, at the most."

"Oh," I whisper and we fall in silence for a few minutes until I decide to break it again. "Well, are you going to eat it or not?"

He remained silent, but I could see the hesitation on his face… I had always burned cookies and whatever else not Chinese food I tried to make before. However, they weren't burned this time, and in order to show him that, I got up and grabbed one, putting it in my mouth in an attempt to show him he could eat it.

Then I noticed _I_ couldn't. They were too hard… I couldn't bite them! So, instead, I turned my back to him and, getting it out of my mouth discretely, I made another invitation, "I think Wei has dinner ready, so let's go!"

And I was out of the door before anything else, the tray of cookies in my hands. I dropped them in a plastic bag and threw it in the trash can as quickly as I could before heading back to the kitchen where the table was already set up by his caretaker.

The three of us had an enjoyable dinner together, though the only one actually making noise was I; Wei replied politely most of the times in a low voice, while Syaoran only muttered one-syllable answers at the most… He's probably thinking about the cards again.

When dinner was over, and before he could run away, I followed the one who was my crush back to his room and, somehow, managed to straddle him on top of the bed.

"Meirin!" He seemed like a tomato already.

"Can we go to the beach tomorrow, Syaoran? Just you and me? Please?" I practically begged him. He was blushing crimson by now, probably due to the proximity of our faces, which was less than two inches apart. His answer was the nod of his head, probably out of nervousness, though. Syaoran had never been very good with proximities.

I smiled and hopped off of him, but before going out, I turned around and walked back to him. "You didn't eat dessert, so I thought you'd like this," I said, handing him a bar of milk chocolate.

He nodded as he accepted it, "Thanks, Meirin."

And then he smiled at me.

I couldn't hold back; before I knew it, I had kissed his cheek. It was just his cheek, and it was only a quick peck, but he was turning red again… that easily.

"Meirin!" He shouted, surprised, when he regained his ability to speak.

To cover up my slip, all I said was, "Syaoran! We're cousins! There's no big problem to it!" I falsely explained, smiling.

He seemed to accept it and began eating the chocolate, lying on his bed to restart reading the book that had been open when I came in with the cookies.

Silently, I left him like that.

~//~

Next day, I was really excited. The last time we headed out just the two of us was so long ago, I'm not even sure if it was reality or just one more of my many dreams about him… Most probably it was actually a dream.

When we arrived at the beach, it was so early that the place was deserted. Who was the fool that would show up around 4am in the morning anyway? Well, we were there, so we decided to enjoy it. Why were we there so early? Syaoran's idea; my crush said we could use it to practice our martial arts…

And that's exactly what we did when we got there, already dressed for easy moving: Syaoran was wearing black shorts reaching the middle of his thighs that clung to them like a second skin underneath beige loose boxers – which were hanging very low, but hanging. His chest was bare; in my case, I only wore tight red shorts of same length as his and a black mini shirt that left my belly completely exposed.

Like he'd said, we needed the ability to move if we were going to practice.

With the necessary compliments, we took our stances about five feet from each other. At first, we just warmed up before practicing the basic moves twenty times each. After that, we practiced the synchronized movements, including the sequence we'd used against "The Twins" Clow card.

Finally, after all that was done, we started fighting against each other, though it was no more than friendly matches. I was the first to attack, and we danced about the sands for some time between different sorts of kicks and punches, sometimes dodging and sometimes blocking. Finally, Syaoran was able to take my balance and bring me to the sandy ground, pinning me there until I admitted defeat.

His weight still on top of me, I smiled. "I really can't win against you, can I?" I asked him in a low voice. I had never managed to win even one match against him… and I had the feeling he never fought me seriously, today included.

Our faces were pretty close when I asked that, so when he offered me a small consolation smile, though his eyes remained serious, once again I couldn't refrain myself.

I raised my head… and our lips touched. They lingered only a while due to some people already passing by who whistled during this short period of time.

When I finally realized my actions, I broke the contact and laid my head on the sand once again. "I'm sorry, Syaoran," I tried to apologize weakly, "It's just… I love you, and you know that. Sometimes it's just too hard to hold back."

He looked at me seriously and quietly for a few seconds before murmuring something I'd never dreamed he'd reply.

"Then don't," was all he whispered before _his_ lips came crushing down on mine in a very sweet meeting. When we finally broke apart, Syaoran softly blew near my ear words I could only dream of from him since I was six, perhaps even earlier than that.

"Let's give _us_ a try, Meirin. You know I don't know how to deal with feelings, though I am sure I like you beyond a cousin's love. I might not understand this, but I'm almost sure this might be love..."

I smiled and raised my head to kiss him again… deeply. The feeling of being pressed between the warm sand beneath me and Syaoran's hot body above mine was the greatest thing I had ever felt until then.

**END of BEACH SANDS**

A.N.: Thanks for reading! Comments, criticisms, errors/mistakes, incoherencies, misspellings and just about whatever more, please leave them in a review!

Syaoran-Lover KaiLi signing out!


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